Amazon might be on to the killer app for restocking toilet paper from the privacy of your home.

Amazon Prime members can now request an invite to get their hands on “Dash Button,” a small oval-shaped device to be placed strategically around the home like drawers, cupboards ... or the bathroom wall. Push its button, and the device will instantly purchase an item of the user’s choosing. Currently there’s more than a dozen buttons for buying Tide laundry detergent, Bounty paper towels and Gillette shaving products. Users can set up the device to send them any applicable item they want; a link on Amazon’s site refers users to more than 250 Dash button products including moisturizers, dog food, and paper towels.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office may have dropped its investigation of software firm Autonomy earlier this year, but that doesn’t appear to have done much to allay HP’s ire. HP—which acquired Autonomy in 2011—has confirmed that it plans to sue Mike Lynch and Sushovan Hussain, Autonomy’s former CEO and CFO, for $5.1 billion.

HP filed a Claim Form against Lynch and Hussain on Monday alleging they engaged in fraudulent activities while executives at Autonomy, an HP spokeswoman said via email. “The lawsuit seeks damages from them of approximately $5.1 billion.”

Microsoft’s Surface 3 is the first announced device to use Intel’s new Cherry Trail Atom chips, but you can expect therm to show up soon in other devices too. So what are the chips capable of and what should we expect?

The Surface 3, which went on sale Tuesday, highlights some of the capabilities of Cherry Trail, officially called the Atom X5 and X7. The chips can run full Windows 8 and Windows 10 and are better at graphics than their ‘Bay Trail’ predecessors. But they also have limitations. They won’t do so well at compute intensive tasks such as video editing, which remain the domain of Intel’s faster Core processors.

Klaus Tschira, an SAP co-founder who helped pioneer the development of modern ERP (enterprise resource planning) software and turn the Germany-based company into a global software powerhouse, died Tuesday in Heidelberg at 74.

Tschira founded SAP with four former IBM colleagues in 1972, with the intention of creating standardized application software for real-time data processing, a departure from the batch-oriented systems in place at the time.

“Klaus Tschira’s passion for the sciences, in particular mathematics and computer sciences, guided him throughout his life. With his foundations he opened the doors for many young talents to enter the field of science,” SAP said in a statement announcing the death. No cause of death was given, but SAP said it was “unexpected.”

For the next version of its Visual Studio, Microsoft has consolidated the enterprise versions of the integrated development environment (IDE) software into a single product so it can be more easily managed by large organizations.

“What we’ve been hearing from our customers is that they want to standardize on one offering across their teams in the enterprise,” said Mitra Azizirad, Microsoft general manager for developer tools marketing and sales. “We want to help them have a more seamless integration between development and operations.”

Microsoft is expected to release Visual Studio 2015 this year, though has not specified a date as of yet. Users can download a preview version.

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SecurityWindowsTidal needs lots of improvements to justify its lofty price tagTue, 31 Mar 2015 11:22:00 -0700Michael BrownMichael BrownYesterday’s cavalcade-of-stars re-launch was fun and all, but the service is no different than it was last week.http://www.techhive.com/article/2904394/tidal-needs-lots-of-improvements-to-justify-its-lofty-price-tag.html#tk.rss_all
How to add a number row to the Google keyboardTue, 31 Mar 2015 10:57:00 -0700Derek WalterDerek Walter

Typing in a series of numbers can be a cumbersome process on a touch-screen keyboard.

Fortunately, Google Keyboard lets you create a dedicated number row across the top of the keyboard so you can fly through your data entry.

Facebook tracks everyone who visits its site, including people who don’t have an account, and even continues to track users and non-users who have opted out of targeted ads, researchers at two Belgian universities have found.

A tool for nearly real-time management of clients like desktops, laptops and Windows tablets is now set to take on massive organizations that have millions of endpoints.

Tanium is software that can examine and modify all such clients across an enterprise within 15 seconds, according to the company. It’s already being used by customers with more than 500,000 endpoints, and the newly released Version 6.5 is designed to serve some of the world’s largest organizations, especially in the public sector, Tanium says.

At the heart of Tanium’s software is the ability to rapidly reach all endpoints throughout an organization, which can speed up both security and IT management tasks. Tanium makes this work by organizing endpoints into linear chains in which they communicate peer to peer.

The Hisense Chromebook—announced Tuesday morning and available now at Walmart.com—costs just $149. And that super-low price is probably its most remarkable feature. This model, along with the Haier Chromebook also announced today, sets a new standard for affordable computers in this age of more expensive Windows laptops, and even pricier Macs.

We could easily criticize this Chromebook for everything it doesn’t have for $149, but we can’t ignore the benefit of that price point for people or schools on a tight budget. Think about it this way: The minimum wage in San Francisco (where PCWorld is based) is currently $11.05. Someone working for that wage would have to work about 15 hours (based on gross pay, and assuming sales tax) to afford the $149 Hisense Chromebook. That already seems like a lot, doesn’t it?

Google is giving systems admins more control over Apps documents in an attempt to alleviate concerns about securing company data after moving email and productivity software to the cloud.

Specifically, admins will be able to apply more granular policies for sharing files inside and outside their companies, as well as set custom alerts that are triggered by certain actions and events, Google said Tuesday.

“Security ranks at the top of the list of concerns that companies have about moving to the cloud,” Scott Johnston, Google Drive’s director of product management, wrote in a blog post.

All the apps are free and there is no limit on file sizes or types that can be transferred. There are two ways to share files. Recipients who have the one of the apps installed get a notification they have to accept. It’s also possible to share content with users who don’t have the apps; they get a link to download it from via email.

If you begin to see a deluge of pure Android apps suddenly appear in the Chrome Web Store for Chromebooks, there’s a reason: Google has gone mainstream with App Runtime for Chrome (ARC), the company’s bid to lure uber-apps like VLC to the Chrome OS platform.

Think of ARC as a complement to the so-called “Chrome apps” or ”packaged apps” that debuted in 2013. But while a packaged app might be just a glorified Web app, Google employees said an app written with ARC is more like a native port of an Android app.

On Tuesday, Google announced the $249 Asus Chromebook Flip. As the first mainstream Chrome device to offer a 360-degree hinge, the Flip can function as a tablet as well as a laptop. (Lenovo was first to offer a Chrome OS convertible with its ThinkPad Yoga 11e last year, but that model was meant primarily for education, and was chunkier and pricier that most people would like.)

By the time the Chromebook Flip ships—in six to eight weeks, Google says—Google will also release version 42 of Chrome OS, with updates to improve the touch experience. Google says highlights will include the ability to flip the display image, an onscreen keyboard, handwriting recognition, and “full offline capabilities.”

After a steady two-year drizzle of Chromebook releases, Google and its partners are preparing a flood of new hardware to sway consumers away from cheap Windows laptops. Chromebooks from HiSense and Haier go on sale today at $149 each, followed by the Asus Chromebook Flip, a 360-degree convertible, in the coming months.

And if a Chromebook itself is too big and bulky, then you might consider the Asus Chromebit, a Chromebook-on-a-stick that will cost less than $100. In all, 10 Chrome products will launch over the next two months, Google executives said. Besides the HiSense and Haier laptops highlighted here, you’ll see models from Acer, AOPEN, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo and LG ranging from $149 to $499.

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ChromebooksWhatsApp voice calling now available to all without an inviteTue, 31 Mar 2015 09:42:00 -0700Derek WalterDerek Walter

If you’ve been impatiently waiting for an invite to try out the new WhatsApp calling feature, you’ll be glad to know someone finally flipped the switch for everybody.

The only catch is you need to make sure you have the most recent version of the app installed: you can grab it from the WhatsApp site, APK Mirror, or wait for version 2.12.19 to show up in Google Play.

Asus is taking orders for the latest version of its Transformer Book Chi laptops, which can convert into tablet mode with detachable keyboards.

The T100 Chi is a successor of sorts to the old Transformer Book T100 from 2013. It has a 10.1-inch IPS touchscreen with 1920-by-1200 resolution, quad-core Intel Atom Z3775 1.46GHz processor, 2 GB of RAM, and 32 GB of storage for $399. (A 64 GB version will cost $449.)

The tablet alone measures 0.3 inches thick and weighs 1.3 pounds, and becomes 0.5 inches thick and 2.4 pounds with the keyboard dock. Asus is advertising up to 10 hours of battery life for this model.

Want to buy movies through Steam? Yeah, me neither. You can though, and I'll admit I've picked up a few documentaries in my Steam library over the years— Indie Game: The Movie, for one, and a copy of last year's VR-oriented film Zero Point.

But today sees the release of the first fiction film on Steam, thanks to Devolver Digital. The film is titled Motivational Growth, and is apparently a sci-fi comedy. "Ian is a depressed recluse whose beloved television set has just died; after a botched suicide attempt, he begins to take life advice from the smooth-talking chunk of aspergillus in the 104-minute game- and pop culture-inflected joyride."

Ross' version was built using the Unity Game Engine, which meant it could be played as a desktop program or in a web browser. It also had gamepad and keyboard support and featured glorious high-definition visuals.

Chinese gadget maker Xiaomi is gunning for the connected fitness market with a dirt-cheap smart scale.

The Mi Smart Scale will cost roughly $16 when it goes on sale in China. It tracks both weight and body mass index, and connects over Bluetooth to Xiaomi’s Mi Fit iOS and Android apps, so users can track their weight over time.

The scale also has a built-in LED display that lights up when the users steps on, and is covered in glass. Xiaomi says the scale is accurate to within 50 grams, or roughly a tenth of a pound.

While none of those features are unique among smart scales, the asking price is considerably cheaper compared to scales from Withings and Fitbit, which cost upwards of $100.

Israeli cloud monitoring company Cloudyn has added support for Azure, helping companies stay on top of their Microsoft deployments.

One of the biggest challenges with large-scale public, private or hybrid cloud rollouts is monitoring usage and performance, to avoid bill shock or angry users. Offering to help companies manage such cloud deployments, Cloudyn launched its platform about three years ago, and on Tuesday it added Azure.

Up to now, Cloudyn has been able to monitor Amazon Web Services’ EC2, Google’s Cloud Platform and a number of OpenStack distributions, including those from Mirantis and Red Hat, according to CEO and co-founder Sharon Wagner.

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OS & system enhancementCloud & ServicesHow to figure out if a website is down...or if it's just youTue, 31 Mar 2015 07:00:00 -0700Ian PaulIan Paul

Internet access is a glorious thing—except for when it isn't. Sometimes it's an easy fix if you know how to solve Wi-Fi router problems, and other times the issue isn't so obvious, especially if it looks like your favorite site went down and took half the web with it.

If you need to figure out if a particular site is up and running or if the problem begins and ends with you, here's how.

AT&T promised to bring gigabit broadband to Silicon Valley, and more than seven months later it has finally delivered. The carrier recently announced U-Verse with GigaPower is now available in parts of Cupertino, California—albeit for a steep price premium compared to the cost of the GigaPower service in cities with gigabit Internet competition.

GigaPower arrives ahead of Google Fiber, which is available in eight markets across the U.S., but has not yet come to the heart of America’s tech industry. Cupertino is best known as Apple’s home base, but it’s also just down the road from Google’s backyard in Mountain View.

For the past two years, a cyberespionage group that likely operates from Lebanon has hacked into hundreds of defense contractors, telecommunications operators, media groups and educational organizations from at least 10 countries.

The still-active attack campaign was uncovered and analyzed recently by security researchers from Check Point Software Technologies, who dubbed it Volatile Cedar. The company’s researchers found evidence that the attackers started their operation in late 2012, but have managed to fly under the radar until now by carefully adapting their tools to avoid being detected by antivirus programs.

Unlike most cyberespionage groups, the Volatile Cedar attackers do not use spear phishing or drive-by downloads to gain a foothold into their victims’ networks. Instead they target Web servers and use them as initial entry points.

What if you could buy a Surface tablet with a bit less horsepower and a slightly smaller display but longer battery life than the Surface Pro 3? And what if you could have all this for a lot less money? If your wallet is already open, let me tell you what you’re buying: the new Microsoft Surface 3—and it's powered by Windows 8.1.

On Tuesday morning, Microsoft launched the Surface 3 with several subtle but critical changes to its entry-level Surface offering. Gone is Windows RT, casually tossed in the dustbin in favor of Windows 8.1. Microsoft also ditched the Surface 2's ARM chip in favor of Intel’s latest “Cherry Trail” Atom X7.

It's a move to a more power-efficient processor that I predicted last week.

LG Electronics is expected to introduce its next high-end smartphone on April 28, and has hinted that the back of the device will be covered in leather.

In the light of the growing focus on looks at the recent Mobile World Congress, it wouldn’t be surprising if LG uses better materials for the successor to the G3, which is expected to be called the G4. The invite for April 28 that the company sent out on Tuesday just said “save the date” and “see the Great”, but the text is written over a leather back with stitching on one side.

LG wouldn’t be the first to offer leather or faux leather as an alternative. Real leather is an option on Motorola Mobility’s Moto Maker customization service, and Samsung Electronics uses faux leather on the back of the Galaxy Note 4.

Virtual evidence is no less tempting to a corrupt agent than cash or drugs found in a raid: Two former US federal agents face charges related to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin in the course of investigating the Silk Road marketplace. A former DEA special agent, who worked undercover to cultivate a relationship with recently convicted Ross Ulbricht, allegedly used online personas to engage in complex bitcoin transactions to steal both from the government and the targets of the investigation. And a former Secret Service agent who served as a computer forensics expert allegedly took more than $800,000 in digital currency that he gained control of during the Silk Road investigation—and put it in his account at now-defunct bitcoin exchange Mt Gox.

I’ve got a confession to make: Even though I’m PCWorld’s gaming and graphics editor as well as a compulsive hoarder of in-game screenshots and video clips, very few of those gaming moments—practically none, if I’m being honest—make their way to my social media feeds. It just feels weird spamming all my non-gamer friends and family with a flood of Dying Light heroics on Facebook.

As it turns out, I’m not the only one who feels that way, and that realization has led Raptr—the service powering AMD and Intel’s PC game streaming and optimization efforts—to create a new social network devoted solely to PC gamers. Plays.TV revolves around sharing and talking about video clips of glorious gaming moments, complete with hashtags and a central feed of clips from the people you choose to follow.